Blue Max: Tactical advices

First of all at the beginning you have to be careful about fuel spending.
You need to control how many planes have more fuel than you as well as controlling the cost of each move
choosed by you and your opponent. In a move like 8R2, 2 is the cost of the fuel and your speed.
The number of hexagons covered on the map is not as important as the cost of fuel spent.

Watch your fuel

As their first move, the German pilots have to consider a stalling move, if that is
the cheaper fuel move to do.

German Pilots have to bring the enemy in their part of the map, so DO NOT start with a 3 fuel spending move.

Tailing
At the very beginning of the fight remember that it's not important to use frontal fire
but to obtain an advantage on your enemy. If you can, grab his TAIL!
Remember to get the tail from enemies or friends, whatever you can.
I prefer getting the tail of a friend plane tailing an enemy, even if I can take
the tail of the same enemy, in order to promote Team Work.

you are flying at speed 3, otherwise you will have a malus on your "fire table"; let the enemy do a speed 3 move instead, then frontal-fire him.

your enemy is tailing you and fired to you last turn. He will have 2 or 3 bonus points in the fire table, and in the end you won't be too happy.

Special hint for Snipe, Siemens and every plane with ONLY 6 engine points:
accept frontal fire only
if you have a better "fire table" and possibly never at distance 1. Even in that case, be very careful to accept frontal fire.
I, usually, will not accept frontal fire. Brave and expert pilots can joke on this "fact".
Remember that, during frontal fire, all damages done to a plane's Tail will be converted in Engine damage
(when you fire from behind with "no deflection", all the damage done to the Engine will be converted in Tail, that is perhaps even worse)

Playing with the engine:
It's very important to understand if an enemy (or ally) plane's engine is broken,
suffers special damage (like no 3-4 move speed) or is running out of fuel.
Remember to check your fuel status and, everytime you see any damage to an engine,
check if that plane has incurred any other damages to the engine.
Try to remember if an enemy made a 3-4 speed moves or restricted…. Many planes became easy target.
A good, but risky, tactic is faking that your engine is broken or that you ran out of fuel... and at the right moment
STALL (but consider that you can regret it, if your enemy should be able to fire to you anyway).

Tips and tricks:
If you fight with a Snipe (or with a Siemens: same moves, less fuel), you have to be calm and wait
for the right moment... no frontal fire (if it's possible) and try to disengage when you are in a
dangerous situation. Remember that fuel is on your side: more moves passed more your enemy
will have to consider retreat.
Try to use moves with speed 2 as much as you can, because then the next turn you can do every kind of moves and considering a speed change, to bite.
Surprise your enemy. When you can tail 2 enemies and you fired one of them, tail the other.
If you can easy do a frontal fire, check if you can shoot another target that doesn't expect you to do so.

Damage explained:B is a light Damage 1-4 point. R is 3-8 (depending on where is the damage and Advanced/standard rule).
Example: on Tail B is 1-2 R 3-4 (special damage, in advanced rule games, can reduce R at 1 point of damage)

My personal "to do list" before choosing what move to do:

check if in the actual turn somebody suffered engine damage, if yes check if he can have a broken engine

check if somebody can tail you and his last speed move

see the last move of everyone and which is his "target"

if there are many enemy planes not far from you DO NOT STALL, and don't hope to surprise 3 or 4 enemies in a row.

tail your ally and consider that if you are in trouble you hope he covers you, so cover him

consider the skill of the pilot you have engaged (at the beginning it was easier for me, many veteran didn't knew me)

the most important thing... try to remember the enemy pilot style... and your fuel status.

To do list: addenda:
In scenario 2vs1 (or many Vs 1) there are 3 way to play:

be near

try to put the other between you

some near some run (the one I suggest). The one who run, bet on the stall of the enemy

Sometimes you could have 2 enemies planes tailing you, another one on your left, another one on your right...
Well, in that case TRY to surprise your enemy... do the more stupid move you can. Do NOT calculate your safe move
(also because in this example... you have not) do the "unexpected" move, the "stupidest" ;-)
If you will be able to save your life probably will be firing to someone in the meantime. If you die, well, it doesn't matter. Sooner or later it has to happen.

Last Advice:STALL IS YOUR ENEMY: in a particular way with planes that after a stall can move only 1 hex (Camel, Fokker Dr1, etc.),
if there are enemies tailing you, they will know exactly the hex where you are moving. Very bad indeed!

Special Thanks to:
All the Pilots that joined in the training game and gave me the chance to put together this guide.
Tatiana Levin that correct my "poor" English. Someone else who convert it to HTML (if there are errors around here, he's the one to blame :-))

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